Not die- be reborn. 
This is the opportunity the Center Right has been waiting for, if they’d just take it.
Fortunately, it’s not up to the Republican Party, it’s up to John Boehner. As soon as he decides he has had enough of the Tea Party punching him in the dick, he will throw them under the bus and left the full House vote on a clean CR.
The Republican Party is over, they just don’t know it yet.
[quote=“Martini_Enfield, post:1, topic:670421”]
I have to say as a non-American I’m astounded the political situation there could get to the point where the government has literally shut down because it doesn’t have any [ /QUOTE]
Except the government is NOT literally shut diwn. Read some of the other threads explaining this.
Compromise? As in “Do what I say or I will fire hundreds of thousands of workers?” Or: “Do what I say or I will destroy the economy?”
The Dems are perfectly willing to compromise, provided the Republicans stop making extortionist threats, that no Democrat in the past has ever made. In fact they have already agreed to Republican spending levels, though this damages the economy.
Also, how long does a continuing resolution last? Cave into to blackmail and you only encourage more blackmail.
Excuse me, but I am a Republican and I think that the Republicans that are cockblocking this are fucking assholes who are more interested in proving Obama and anything he proposes [even if he didn’t originally propose it] and anything that “goes wrong” during his terms in office are all his fault even if they have to fuck over the entire country to do so. They are the ones holding the country at gunpoint, blackmailing everybody in a petulant rage because every single way they have tried to get their way has failed. Now they are acting like 3 year olds sitting there crying and holding their breath until they turn blue and fall out of their chairs.
They can fuck off and die alone in a syphilis raddled coma as far as I am concerned.
And Boehner has said that he will not let the U.S. default. At this point, I think he’s holding out to try to minimize the political fallout within his party, both waiting for the smallest possible bill he can get, and making it seem like he had no other choice.
BTW, do you know what my most conservative friends are saying? You know, the ones who have actually been in the Tea Party or shown support for it? They say that we should let Obamacare take effect and start bracing for how to deal with it when it fails. When even they don’t support this…
Maybe not, but headlines around the world are telling the people of the world exactly that. You’re correct that the American government shutdown is not a shutdown of the American government, but you can understand why people with different political systems might not get these little nuances. Meanwhile, America looks foolish. As an American citizen, I’m just embarrassed. (And I have written my senators and my representative, Democrats all, and voiced my complaints. Barring a one-man riot on the streets of Canada, I’m not sure what else I could do.)
The reason those of us who live in Parliamentary systems modelled on the British Parliament find this so bizarre is that in our system, the most basic responsibility of the government is to maintain operations. That’s why a defeat on the budget is itself a non-confidence measure. If a government cannot meet the most basic obligation of a government, to maintain operations, then it’s off to the polls we go - let the people sort out the mess.
And, since in most parliamentary systems, (1) electoral boundaries are drawn by neutral electoral commissions, and (2) if you want to change government, you have to vote against the incumbent, no vote-splitting between legislative and executive, then (3) an election on a failure to pass a budget will normally resolve the issue, one way or another.
Some of them absolutely did. If you don’t know this, you’re not paying attention.
You’re wrong. The fact that some Republicans won’t fund the government unless they get a gift is directly responsible for the shutdown. The fact that some Republicans think funding the government is a bargaining chip that you trade for something else is directly responsible for the shutdown. The Democrats are all willing to fund the government at current levels - levels the Republicans like better than Democrats, by the way - and Republicans want something first. That tells you right there who is responsible for this. It couldn’t be simpler.
What was it?
Wait, you’re saying people who don’t matter have uninformed opinions we don’t give a tin shit about? Why, this changes everything!
I’m not saying the opinions of foreigners should shape domestic policy or anything. But when you say “people who don’t matter,” that’s a view of the world I don’t understand.
I really hate the way that America is increasingly a laughingstock outside the borders of the USA. I can’t think of a good way to explain why reputation matters. I mean, nobody’s going to pull out of NATO because Congress is collectively behaving like an ass, and I’m sure the effect on trade and tourism is negligible.
Seriously, though: the entire world is watching your elected government have a very public, very stupid tantrum, and you’re not the least bit embarrassed? I’m mortified. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last week answering questions about the shutdown for people who are not Americans.
From what I read, the government didn’t shut down due to budget issues prior to the Reagan Administration. Then some official gave a legal opinion that it wasn’t kosher to continue with government if there was no budget (but essential services were allowed) and here we are today.
But, ignoring it is a less practical option if you have to get to work and the toddler’s got your car keys.
It did, once. It was a very effective shutdown. It shut down the life-functions of the dissenting members. [rimshot]
Same reason we care about what people at our local church might think if we run naked through the streets.
Or why we would care or be embarrassed about being seen wearing a giant “I’m an idiot” sign in Times Square in front of millions of strangers.
It’s pathological and somewhat inhuman not to care the slightest about such a thing. And I’m sure people actually do have some emotional investment in foreign response, even if only to the extent that they are somewhat proud that dem furriners have no say or power in the matter. I can’t imagine more than a small, pathological segment of the population that’s actually completely agnostic on the subject.
I just wonder what those people in other countries expect us to do. Are they more unified than us, politically? Do they want us to change our system of government? To what? Are their systems that easy to change? Or are the House Republicans just that much crazier and dumber than any other major political force in the world?
It’s just that our systems are designed so that this type of tantrum can’t happen, as I mentioned in my earlier post. If the government can’t get it’s budget passed in a parliamentary system, gov’t doesn’t shut down - we’re off to the polls to have the people resolve the dispute.
Your vision of the US is out of date. The US is rapidly devolving into a third world banana republic, run by a wealthy oligarchy instead of a dictatorship, but definitely and rapidly losing most pretence of being a democracy. The shutdown is just one symptom of the whole debacle.
I’d say its because the vadt majority of us Americans are politically apathetic and have no real understanding of or awareness of politics, history, or international relations, beyond what country Uncle Sam is currently &%&*&ing. The main concept of politics is like a WWF match between THE REPUBLICINATOR and THE DEMOCRATONIZER. This idiotic arbitrary polarization is the result of, not so much the natural human propensity for campism and the rigged game of a two party system, as of media personalities on either camp needing a constant Enemy character to keep ranting about, and over time its escelated to full retard. But the MAIN reason for no one giving a %&$ is because their cars have fuel, there’s food in the fridge, no enemy tanks in the streets, and they really really have to spend their energy on keeping up with whose backstabbing who in Survivor and what Miley Cyrus is wearing.
The Westminster system of parliament (used in places like the UK and most of the Commonwealth) generally has a provision that if a supply bill cannot be passed, parliament is dissolved and new elections are called.
This famously happened in Australia in 1975, when the Governor-General sacked the Prime Minister because (among other things) the Senate (Upper House of the Australian Federal Parliament) couldn’t get a supply bill passed.
As to what “those people in other countries” expect you in the US to do? Speaking for myself, I’d expect both sides to stop throwing the political equivalent of an epic wobbly in the supermarket and pass the bill guaranteeing the funds the national government needs to function.
I can’t speak for the entire rest of the English-speaking world but I know a lot of people in Australia (myself included) who think there is something seriously wrong with the way so many people in the US are vehemently opposed to affordable healthcare for everyone. Shutting down the national government (apparently) to stop people from getting affordable healthcare is not, IMHO, a particularly noble course of action and absolutely not something anyone should be proud of.
A brief internet search was only able to come up with one other modern, civilised country experiencing government shutdowns anything like the way the US (and some of its component states) have, and that was Belgium, who went from 2007 until 2011 without a proper national government.
Even then, it still wasn’t quite the same thing as the US because (as I understand it) government employees still got paid and things like the passport office, national parks etc remained open. And their shutdown wasn’t about a single “issue” the way the US seems to be.
On the other hand, Belgium hasn’t been a world power since The Goon Show was still airing new episodes on the wireless, unlike the US who are still one of the most important economic, military and political powers in the world today.